


Gravitational

by fayharley



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/F, First Meetings, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:20:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayharley/pseuds/fayharley
Summary: The Hephaestus was silent when they arrived.
Relationships: Hera/Alana Maxwell
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Three Day Rental: A Horror Themed Flash Exchange Round 1





	Gravitational

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Inspired by the movie _Event Horizon_

The Hephaestus was silent when they arrived. It wasn't that Maxwell had expected a party but something about the silence of the station set her on edge. Earth had assumed the Hephaestus had been destroyed in whatever burst for radiation had shorted out all long way scanners pointed towards Wolf 359. It was a logical conclusion. Even if the station was still in orbit any humans on board would have run out of resources years ago. So when Goddard Futuristics had received the distress call everyone was intrigued. 

"I notice that the temperature and pressure is still at habitable levels," Kepler said as they picked their way through the station to the bridge. "Is that something that could have been maintained with the Mother program offline?"

"Not for long," Maxwell answered. "With human monitoring and assistance things could be kept on track for a time. A few months. Maybe a year, long enough to get a distress call put out and for help to arrive if you really had someone who knew what they were doing but nine years?"

"But there was no response to our hail," Kepler said. "We had to initiate the docking sequence. No one came when we boarded. No response even now. Seems atypical."

"Everything about this is atypical," Jacobi complained. "Or did you not notice the star?"

They had all noticed the star. As the Urania had approached Wolf 359 crew morale had taken a… turn. Maxwell didn't have a word for it. The human mind was not familiar territory for her as AIs were. She had no explanation for why they had all been plagued with nightmares so startling in their intensity that being awakened by screams had become the new normal. Seven hours ago she had been sobbing in her bunk after spending what felt like years with hands sunk deep into a tangle of wire and flesh trying to repair the delicate circuits without bleeding out from all the teeth dug into her arms. Through the whole dream the blue star hovered just behind her, it's terrible heat making the sweat on the back of her neck boil and her skin split. Even if she wasn't looking at it she could feel it there. Watching. 

"We'll be reaching the bridge soon," Kepler said, sidestepping the star conversation completely. He had maintained the facade of being unaffected by the dreams for some time but in the past week even he had been twitchy and red eyed. "Maxwell, you'll be able to access the AI from there, correct?"

"Correct," she agreed. "Unless there's been a power disruption somewhere, in which case we'll have to head to engineering and-"

She stopped. The air was dead still around her. She didn't want to turn, she knew what the sudden absence of noise behind her met. Zero gravity eliminated footsteps but moving through a hallway still required contacting the walls to propel and steer. But the small soft thumps that she was used to had stopped. As had their breathing. 

Her hand shaking on the beam she held to stop herself, she turned her head to look. She was alone. 

"Okay," she said. 

"Hello," came a female voice. Maxwell flinched. "Hel- hello - o - hel-"

The voice glitched. The Hephaestus AI. Or an AI as least. 

"Hello," Maxwell answered. "Can you hear me? See me?"

"Y-yes," the AI stuttered. "Are you- are you here to- to hel-"

"Help you?" Maxwell said. "Yes, I am. You're Hera, right?"

"Hera? Hera- yes. I think I'm Hera."

"Great!" Maxwell said. "I'm Alana. Now Hera, can you see the whole station? Can you see the two men who were with me?"

"I don't-" Hera said. "I can't- I. It's been so long."

"I know, is-"

"I was gone. Did you know I was gone? The other place was- was-"

"You were gone?" Maxwell asked. Someone had taken Hera's system off the station and then returned her years later? "Are you sure you weren't just offline?"

"No," Hera insisted. "I was gone. You don't want- you don't want to- go-"

Hera growing agitated had an effect of the station itself. The lights were flickering and the sensors on Maxwell's suit reported wild fluctuations in the atmosphere of the room. Fluctuations so quick they should be impossible. A lot of this should be impossible. 

"Hera," Maxwell said, trying with all her might to sound calm and collected. "It's going to be okay. I need you to-"

"I can't."

"You can, Hera," Maxwell insisted. "I read your file before I came here. You accomplished so much. You went farther than any other AI in your series in your evaluation tests! You kept going without communications or updates from Earth for years! We're going to fix this, okay? Together."

"Together?"

"Yes Hera, we're going to work together now. All of us. Please, can you look around the station and find the men I was with?"

"You came alone," Hera said.

"No, I didn't. That's not even possible. Hera, I'm coming to the bridge, there must be something wrong with your internal sensors."

"We're alone, all alone," Hera said, voice trailing off into a sing-songy whisper. "Always alone." 

"Hera?"

The pressure was here, just behind her. The pressure from her dreams. The great, terrible blue sun. Even through her space suit she felt it beginning to boil her blood.

"Hera!" Maxwell snapped. "Hera, you're not alone anymore, okay?"

"I-"

"I'm not going to leave you alone."

A squealing static was building in the air. 

"Oh," Hera said faintly. "They're coming."

"Who?" Maxwell demanded. She refused to turn and look the star. How was the star inside the station? "Who is-"

It didn't take looking to know they were there. 

"The listeners." 

They were like tinnitus made flesh.

"You're not… you're not going to go with them, right?" Hera asked. "Not like the others."

"No Hera," Maxwell said. She clenched her fists. She wasn't someone who could be cowed so easily. Her head was pounding, the static spiking in volume. She was not going to be afraid. 

Maxwell turned at last, fixing them with a stare. They flickered and moved like puppets on strings. Human shaped. Joints dripping with what looked like blood but wasn't. Blood drops would have been floating in zero gravity but these didn't. They dripped dripped dripped and entirely too bright. Fake violence, the kind you saw in movies. Real bodies, when you broke them they weren't like that on the inside. 

"I'm staying right here," Maxwell said.


End file.
